Application Information

Program Description

This .25-credit summer intensive institute offers students an opportunity to engage in activist and/or advocacy work focused on one of three tracks:

• Community Organizing (campaign recruitment, event planning, op-ed writing, protest training, policy research, public speaking, criminal justice accountability, case advocacy). 
• Immigrant Detention Work and Movement Lawyering (working with attorneys representing immigrants in detention; research on immigrant detention center conditions; advocacy/organizing work to shut down immigrant detention centers).
• Environmental Justice Organizing (community organizing, advocacy campaigns, research).

During the program, students learn skills to engage in activist projects, consider anti-racist approaches to community-engaged work, participate in discussions focused on conceptions of social change, and explore activist/advocacy career possibilities.

The 6-week program begins with one week of orientation on the Colorado College campus led by the program director and activists representing the community partner organizations participating in the program. This orientation will incorporate multi-disciplinary reading and discussion focusing on the criminalization of BIPOC communities (the racial dimensions of carceral capitalism and immigrant detention), community organizing theory and practice, immigration policy, and movement lawyering practices. National activists will conduct workshops during the orientation, as well.

Following the orientation, students will travel by groups to their designated community partner sites in Colorado College vehicles. Throughout the program, the program director will travel to each program site twice to reflect on the experience with students. These visits are supplemented with Zoom sessions with the students and community partner organizations. At the end of the program, students present their work to their host community partner organizations and then reconvene at Colorado College for a 1.5-day program debriefing.

Program Outcomes

1. Students will demonstrate an understanding of how community-based knowledge structures, organizational analysis, and initiatives shape student collective project work. 
2. Students will demonstrate the ability to evaluate systemic inequality and power relationships for effecting social change.
3. Students will practice cultural humility by reflecting on their own cultural wealth and their assets as team members to gain awareness of their strengths and limitations as community change agents. 
4. Students will demonstrate an ability to delineate and utilize appropriate strategies and mechanisms for effecting social change by reflecting on how their civic commitments align with their career aspirations. 

Cost, Credit, and Funding

There is no program fee for Colorado College students. Housing, food, incidentals, transportation, and all other program costs are covered through the generous support of the Colorado College President’s Office Anti-Racism Fund, Colorado College Department of Sociology, the William P. Dean Memorial Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project.

CC students who receive need-based aid from the college will receive a $500 stipend upon successfully completing the program.

The cost for students from colleges other than Colorado College is $5,000, plus airfare to/from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

All participants will be enrolled in a .25-unit General Studies course. CC students on an F-1 visa will receive a transcript notation applied to their summer transcript in compliance with their Curricular Practical Training (CPT).

CC students who do not require work authorization will receive .25-units applied to their next fully enrolled semester. Non-CC students will be admitted as non-degree-seeking students and receive .25-units of credit (equivalent to approximately one semester unit at another institution). Non-CC students on an F-1 visa should consult with their primary DSO regarding the CPT process. 

Transcripts listing the course will be available to all participants who complete the program.

International Students

Students studying in the U.S. on an F-1 or J-1 visa must obtain employment authorization BEFORE participating in an off-campus internship (any training experience away from the institution's campus that holds their SEVIS record). Students on an F-1 visa will pursue Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or Pre-Completion Optional Practical Training (OPT), while students on a J-1 visa will pursue Academic Training. Students on an F-1 or J-1 visa must contact the international student services office holding their SEVIS record in advance for details regarding CPT, OPT, or Academic Training.

Partner Organizations

Community Organizing Track

Mijente – No Tech for ICE Campaign (Southwest location TBD)

Mijente is a political hub for Latinx and Chicanx people who seek racial, economic, gender, and climate justice through organizing and advocacy campaigns. Over the past several summers, students working with Mijente conducted strategic research focused on ICE reliance on data broker information (LEXIS-NEXIS) to access police booking information in Denver and to document new technology systems facilitating surveillance in the US-Mexican border region. Students will engage in organizing campaigns in the US Southwest. (Spanish language fluency is required; southwest location has not yet been determined).  

Colorado Jobs with Justice (Denver, Colorado)

Colorado Jobs with Justice is a coalition of labor, community, faith, and youth organizations working on fair labor, just wage, and equitable working environments in a way that crosses lines of sector, race, and class to win concrete victories for working people. Students work on active organizing campaigns, including local minimum wage campaigns, empowering women and non-binary folx in building trades and confronting wage theft campaigns. (High proficiency in Spanish is required for some positions).

Mano Amiga, San Marcos, Texas

Mano Amiga works with and organizes alongside communities impacted by criminalization and/or immigration to push for systemic policy change at the local level. Mano Amiga works directly with impacted community members to amplify their lived experiences and identify solutions to change systems and improve material conditions. The organization has a vision of creating a corridor of resistance between Austin & San Antonio, TX, against racist and anti-immigrant policies. Students may have the opportunity to cross-train in many aspects of grassroots community organizing, including case advocacy, policy research, police/prosecutor/judicial accountability, op-ed & other writing, public speaking, protest training, and more. (High proficiency in Spanish is required for some positions).

Organiza Texas, Austin, Texas

Organiza Texas is a collective of immigrant rights organizers based in Austin, Texas, working to combat Texas Governor Abbott’s Operation Lonestar (OLS). OLS is a border militarization operation targeting immigrants, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of close to 40,000 people in South Texas. The OLS initiative deploys Texas state police officers and National Guard members to the Texas-Mexico border to perform duties currently reserved for federal authorities. Students will have the opportunity to document OLS conditions, engage in legislative advocacy campaigns, and collaborate with local communities organizing to confront OLS. (High proficiency in Spanish is required for some positions).       

Immigrant Detention Work and Movement Lawyering Track

New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico

The New Mexico Immigrant Law Center empowers low-income immigrant communities through collaborative legal services, advocacy, and education. Students may be able to assist attorneys representing immigrants in the Torrance, Cibola, and Otero detention centers in New Mexico and engage in local detention center shutdown campaigns. (Spanish language proficiency is required for some positions).

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, El Paso, Texas

Las Americas is an El Paso-based legal clinic providing free and low-cost legal services to immigrants and refugees in West Texas, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico, at the US-Mexican border. The clinic also serves detention centers in this region. In previous summers, students working with Las Americas conducted intake and other interviews with immigrants in detention and engaged in the community outreach program. (Spanish language fluency is required for most positions). 

Environmental Justice Organizing Track

Chispa Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona

Chispa Arizona empowers Latinx communities to influence policy, protect natural resources, and combat climate change. Through grassroots advocacy and community engagement, the organization strives to deliver clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods for those most impacted by climate change. Students will work on the Clean and Green Campaign, addressing the issue of urban heat islands, or work with youth engaged in climate justice campaigns. (Spanish language proficiency is required for some positions.)

Conservation Colorado, Denver, Colorado

Conservation Colorado is a leading environmental organization dedicated to Colorado's environment and bringing people into policy. Students will work closely with our community engagement, government affairs, and organizing teams on an advocacy-based project focusing on extreme heat and its effects on Colorado's workforce, with a particular emphasis on environmental justice and the Latino community.